Been thinking about Rituals and Tales lately. I don't want to overload the game with them, but there's a lot of room to expand here and it can be done in a reasonable manner by grouping them together in packets or campaigns. We'll play a lot of games featuring Tales of Beauty and Horror and we'll rely on the Ritual of the Unseen and the Long Spell a lot. That sort of thing.
So let me ask you if you've seen patterns in your own games that could be ritualized or patterns in the source fiction you'd like to see supported by rituals, tales or the like.
Listening.
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ReplyDeleteYes, although much of that is in the setup and very game dependant. Do you want to know what our setups were (as an example)? I'm not sure about campaigns but I have done 2-3 games joined on a specific theme.
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ReplyDeleteStras Acimovic Yes please!
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ReplyDeleteThere are two particular campaign arcs I can think of.
ReplyDeleteThe first actually was an extension of a game. We started in a jungle with some pyramids and serpent-men (because SnS always needs more serpent men) and we had some super interesting discoveries.
One of the tricks that I picked up there was to do what I call a game 'trailer'. How does this work?
I usually snag a picture (session eidolon) and use the Title Thread.
ex: The Witch-King of Xekstesh (a tale of Savagery, Dark Magicks and of Serpent Men)
Then I use the a Destiny overtrick to create some scenes for the 'trailer'.
So here I might outline the rough shape of things to come:
Motif 1:
* The stark lines of a crumbling ziggurat, lit only by the light of the twin moons.
Motif 2:
* The giant lizard devouring men and serpent men alike, it's scaly hide shedding their weapons.
Motif 3:
* The Witch-king, laughing maniacally as he places the Shattered Mask of the Forgotten Kings upon his brow.
If I'm feeling bold I add Serpent Men or maybe the Thunder Lizard (I like dinosaurs :P) to the book of Perils.
(Sidenote: when I do this we tend to use 4 motif cards, with a blank one to be slipped in when we feel like we need pacing. Although I find 2-3 to be a good place for it. We jokingly call this the ritual of the Epic Tale)
I find that small packages like this are really good pitches. You've essentially outlined an adventure like a movie trailer, and everyone is on-board before you start.
Also they're inspiring? So we'd make a couple and leave them around, and folks would re-read them and get inspired and jump in to overplay a session. This is actually what my adventures (like the PDF you saw) arose from.
We also did a Barsoom like campaign (again three games, three titles, three destiny overtricks). Whenever we use new tones we write up descriptive words (like how Glum and Jovial aren't exactly what you think) and make sure it's bold in the middle of the table.
The first story/game was all about the world's wierd tones, new beginnings and High Adventure to help explore it, and we did a bunch of Discovery phases. Game two was about Romance and Wonder. And the third game was about War and Tragedy.
In general we write down a few 'ofs' as our negotiated game-tone (not in-game tone) before playing so we're on the same page. So like 'of low magic' might be a thing.
As a group we sort of use Long Spell, Telling Blow and Companion somewhat regularly (we see at least one or two of these per game) but it's generally left up to the players for watching for it.
I don't know if this helps.
That absolutely helps!
ReplyDeleteThis stuff is so interesting. It makes me even more interested and impressed by the flexibility of Swords and the potential for expansion!
ReplyDeleteAs per Josh McGraw's suggestion a few weeks ago, I've set up a document in our resources folder for new Rituals, Tales and Campaign. I'm going to try to collect the ones that have already been featured in our forum, so if you see some missing, let me know. If you've got ones to add, share away and I'll make sure you they get attributed to you.
ReplyDeleteEpidiah Ravachol rock on; I was even thinking JUST this morning that I should bring that subject back up or offer to take a stab at collecting them myself if you were too busy.
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